He Shines Brightly
by MinxyRock
Summary: Ron isn't as dense as he used to be and he will gladly tell you that. He sin't so thick as to not notice a change in both his girlfriend and his best friend. Please R&R, I'd appreciate it!


He Shines Brightly

It was left carelessly in the den. That's how comfortable Hermione has became around his family in such a short time.

The innocent little book - no wait.

Not innocent at all. It was Hermione's place for laying down thoughts, ideas and "stuff" as she likes to call it. Ron knew it was full of the truth. There was nothing innocent about it.

He should feel guilty for even picking up something so obviously private with the intention of reading it; it was wrong, but he does it any way...because Hermione is different. He wasn't as thick as he used to be and was damn proud of that.

He opens the leather bound journal to the most recent page:

_"He shines brightly from the eyes and smiling face like some clear Tucson sunrise-_

_and as I watch carefully; _

_the way he runs and leaps into the air like a little boy,_

_I think he might be something blazing and otherworldly in faded blue jeans._"

Ron frowned slightly. It started at the Burrow, didn't it? It started developing on those hazy, amber-colored evenings in the orchard between makeshift quidditch games and eating turkey sandwiches on the back porch. Even before he, Ron and she, Hermione, became an official couple. He kept reading:

_"He shines inside as low and cool burning as any glowing pinpoint in the jeweled night coming._

_He shines through the faded band shirts and out of happy retina, discs of green-tinted glass, the way white light explodes on falling water; _

_beading into rainbow droplets that quiver and glitter like those clinging to the minute petals of clover he crushes beneath his broken-in shoes."_

Her writing. Her way with written words, when she couldn't find a way to voice her feelings was one of the things Ron loved about her. Hermione, believe it or not, can be rendered speechless at times. It was during those times that her writing was amazing and pure and so above and beyond Ron's understanding that he was in awe of her...but he understood allot of what he was reading in here.

_"Callused hands and nubby fingernails, he looks back at me as a challenge, smiling like the daylight-_

_then, in a pensive moment, turns in time to see the edge of the sun as a rim of molten bronze before it disappears: bringing the edge of dusk with it to pull spangled covers over the sleeping daystar's resting place._

_Then he's off like a shot, disturbing the quail hiding from our company and I glance up at the moon thickening into illumination in the east, her halo of frost glowing against the impending indigo-blue. And as lovely the eventide is this time around, I still feel like he could have fallen from the glimmering twilight drawing near, washing over us and the knoll we're gamboling around like little kids because no one's around to ask questions. _

_I can't help but smile and be anxious at the same time._"

She used to smile at Ron like that; anxious and happy, slightly amused. A lump was rising in his throat. She describes her time with this person so lovingly.

_"And while I'm there I know enough to chase him with everything I've got: _

_so when I catch him, I can hold him tightly-_

_Because I'm afraid he might wink out and disappear, like the farthest wandering star."_

Ron exhaled in a rush and set the little tell-tale bundle of leather and paper back exactly as he found it. He didn't want to believe that he knew who this boy was that captivated his girlfriend so thoroughly. He did know that it wasn't himself.

Ron turned to exit the den and was faced with the sight of Harry and Hermione walking in.

They sensed a change in him as soon as they crossed the threshold.

"All right Ron?" Harry asked, a bit too nonchalant and casual to be real.

His...his _'disks of green-tinted glass_' reflected a swirl of emotion that Ron didn't care to calculate. Hermione was chewing the corner of her bottom lip, and for the first time in a long time, the sight _didn't_ make Ron fluttery in the stomach.

"No," was all he said and brushed past the two silent people in his den. He went into the bathroom and sat on the floor. Ron had no intention of siting with them on the Hogwarts Express.


End file.
